The present invention relates to illuminated globes and, in particular, to a globe which is controlled by a computer and is selectively illuminated so that the globe can be rotated to a selected viewing position and points such as cities and areas such as countries and other geographical or political areas illuminated.
As discussed below, various types of illuminated globe or almanac displays are available in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,809,448 to Oestergaard discloses a rotatable globe in which the wires for the single internal illumination source are routed through the axial mounting shaft. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,624,648 to Willoughby discloses an annunciator system having a graphic display panel for providing an illuminated display of various conditions within a plant, rather than political or geographic information associated with the earth. U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,941 to McGuire discloses an educational device having a map of the U.S. which is selectively lighted by internal lamps by inserting different control cards.
An article in the Tuesday, Mar. 18, 1986, issue of the New York Times, in the personal computer's section, discussed the apparently recent availability of software programs for displaying global or almanac-type information.
Finally, the Amateur Electronic Supply, Fall 1984, catalog shows a world clock available from ICOM America which contains an illuminated globe. Apparently, the globe is rotated manually and the rotational position controls the illumination of one of twenty-four LED's at selected city locations along with the corresponding local time.
As is evident from the above discussion, despite the availability of various types of illuminated globe and almanac informational systems, to our knowledge there has not been made available a system which is capable of effecting the rotation of a globe to a selected viewing location and concurrently illuminating selected geographical or political points or areas and providing almanac-type information associated with that area such as name, population and other data.